Editing Oxford English Dictionary (section)

=== Oxford editors ===
[[File:James Murray in a scriptorium.jpg|thumb|[[James Murray (lexicographer)|James Murray]] in the Scriptorium at Banbury Road]]
During the 1870s, the [[Philological Society]] was concerned with the process of publishing a dictionary with such an immense scope.<ref name=Dickson /> They had pages printed by publishers, but no publication agreement was reached; both the [[Cambridge University Press]] and the [[Oxford University Press]] were approached. The OUP finally agreed in 1879 (after two years of negotiating by Sweet, Furnivall, and Murray) to publish the dictionary and to pay Murray, who was both the editor and the [[Philological Society]] president. The dictionary was to be published as interval fascicles, with the final form in four volumes, totalling 6,400 pages. They hoped to finish the project in ten years.<ref name=Mugglestone />{{Rp|1}}

[[File:OED quotation slip.jpg|left|thumb|A quotation slip as used in the compilation of the ''OED,'' illustrating the word ''flood'']]
Murray started the project, working in a [[corrugated iron]] outbuilding called the "[[Scriptorium]]" which was lined with wooden planks, bookshelves, and 1,029 pigeon-holes for the quotation slips.<ref name=Craigie />{{Rp|xiii}} He tracked and regathered Furnivall's collection of quotation slips, which were found to concentrate on rare, interesting words rather than common usages. For instance, there were ten times as many quotations for ''abusion'' as for ''abuse''.<ref name="caught178" /> He appealed, through newspapers distributed to bookshops and libraries, for readers who would report "as many quotations as you can for ordinary words" and for words that were "rare, obsolete, old-fashioned, new, peculiar or used in a peculiar way".<ref name="caught178">{{cite book |last=Murray |first=K. M. Elizabeth |title=Caught in the Web of Words: James Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary |url=https://archive.org/details/caughtinwebofwor00murr |url-access=registration |year=1977 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-08919-6 |page=[https://archive.org/details/caughtinwebofwor00murr/page/178 178]}}</ref> Murray had American philologist and [[liberal arts college]] professor [[Francis March]] manage the collection in North America; 1,000 quotation slips arrived daily to the Scriptorium and, by 1880, there were 2,500,000.<ref name=Mugglestone />{{Rp|15}}

The first dictionary fascicle was published on 1 February 1884—twenty-three years after Coleridge's sample pages. The full title was ''A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles; Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by The Philological Society''; the 352-page volume, words from ''A'' to ''Ant'', cost 12[[shilling|s]] 6[[Penny (British pre-decimal coin)|d]]<ref name=Mugglestone />{{rp|251}} ({{Inflation|UK|0.625|1884|fmt=eq}}). The total sales were only 4,000 copies.<ref name=Winchester2003>{{cite book |last=Winchester |first=Simon |title=The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary |year=2003 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-860702-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/meaningofeveryth00winc}}</ref>{{rp|169}}

The OUP saw that it would take too long to complete the work with unrevised editorial arrangements. Accordingly, new assistants were hired and two new demands were made on Murray.<ref name=Mugglestone />{{rp|32–33}} The first was that he move from [[Mill Hill]] to [[Oxford]] to work full-time on the project, which he did in 1885. Murray had his Scriptorium re-erected in the back garden of his new property.<ref name=Craigie />{{Rp|xvii}}

[[File:78 Banbury Road Oxford 20060715.jpg|thumb|left|78 Banbury Road, former home of [[James Murray (lexicographer)|James Murray]], marked with an [[Oxfordshire Blue Plaques Board|Oxfordshire Blue Plaque]]]]
Murray resisted the second demand: that if he could not meet schedule, he must hire a second, senior editor to work in parallel to him, outside his supervision, on words from elsewhere in the alphabet. Murray did not want to share the work, feeling that he would accelerate his work pace with experience. That turned out not to be so, and [[Philip Lyttelton Gell|Philip Gell]] of the OUP forced the promotion of Murray's assistant [[Henry Bradley]] (hired by Murray in 1884), who worked independently in the [[British Museum]] in London beginning in 1888. In 1896, Bradley moved to Oxford University.<ref name=Mugglestone />

Gell continued harassing Murray and Bradley with his business concerns – containing costs and speeding production – to the point where the project's collapse seemed likely. Newspapers reported the harassment, particularly the ''[[Saturday Review (London)|Saturday Review]]'', and public opinion backed the editors.<ref name=Winchester2003 />{{rp|182–83}} Gell was fired, and the university reversed his cost policies. If the editors felt that the dictionary would have to grow larger, it would; it was an important work, and worth the time and money to properly finish.

Neither Murray nor Bradley lived to see it. Murray died in 1915, having been responsible for words starting with ''A–D'', ''H–K'', ''O–P'', and ''T'', nearly half the finished dictionary; Bradley died in 1923, having completed ''E–G'', ''L–M'', ''S–Sh'', ''St'', and ''W–We''. By then, two additional editors had been promoted from assistant work to independent work, continuing without much trouble. [[William Craigie]] started in 1901 and was responsible for ''N'', ''Q–R'', ''Si–Sq'', ''U–V'', and ''Wo–Wy''.<ref name=Craigie />{{Rp|xix}} The OUP had previously thought London too far from Oxford but, after 1925, Craigie worked on the dictionary in Chicago, where he was a professor.<ref name=Craigie />{{rp|xix}}<ref name=Mugglestone /> The fourth editor was [[Charles Talbut Onions]], who compiled the remaining ranges starting in 1914: ''Su–Sz'', ''Wh–Wo'', and ''X–Z''.<ref name=Lex-LMugg>{{cite book |last=Mugglestone |first=Lynda |title=Lexicography and the OED: Pioneers in the Untrodden Forest |year=2000 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=245}}</ref>

In 1919–1920, [[J. R. R. Tolkien]] was employed by the ''OED'', researching etymologies of the ''Waggle'' to ''Warlock'' range;<ref>{{cite web |url=http://public.oed.com/history-of-the-oed/contributors/#tolkien |title=Contributors: Tolkien |access-date=3 October 2012 |website=Oxford English Dictionary Online |archive-date=4 May 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160504010833/http://public.oed.com/history-of-the-oed/contributors/#tolkien}}</ref> later he parodied the principal editors as "The Four Wise Clerks of Oxenford" in the story ''[[Farmer Giles of Ham]]''.<ref name=Considine>{{Cite journal |url=http://www.euralex.org/elx_proceedings/Euralex1998_2/John%20CONSIDINE%20Why%20do%20large%20historical%20dictionaries%20give%20so%20much%20pleasure%20to%20their%20owners%20and%20users.pdf |title=Why do large historical dictionaries give so much pleasure to their owners and users? |last=Considine |first=John |date=1998 |journal=Proceedings of the 8th EURALEX International Congress |access-date=8 June 2014 |pages=579–587 |archive-date=13 July 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140713043602/http://www.euralex.org/elx_proceedings/Euralex1998_2/John%20CONSIDINE%20Why%20do%20large%20historical%20dictionaries%20give%20so%20much%20pleasure%20to%20their%20owners%20and%20users.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref>

By early 1894, a total of 11 fascicles had been published, or about one per year: four for ''A–B'', five for ''C'', and two for ''E''.<ref name=Craigie /> Of these, eight were 352 pages long, while the last one in each group was shorter to end at the letter break (which eventually became a volume break). At this point, it was decided to publish the work in smaller and more frequent instalments; once every three months beginning in 1895 there would be a fascicle of 64 pages, priced at 2s 6d. If enough material was ready, 128 or even 192 pages would be published together. This pace was maintained until World War I forced reductions in staff.<ref name=Craigie />{{rp|xx}} Each time enough consecutive pages were available, the same material was also published in the original larger fascicles.<ref name=Craigie />{{rp|xx}} Also in 1895, the title ''Oxford English Dictionary'' was first used. It then appeared only on the outer covers of the fascicles; the original title was still the official one and was used everywhere else.<ref name=Craigie />{{Rp|xx}}